Posted on 08/24/2011 12:34:43 PM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Despite my hopes, Sen. Marco Rubio will not run for president in 2012. But that doesn’t mean he won’t soon be within a heartbeat of the presidency. As the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza asked on Twitter: “Is it time to rename GOP primaries ‘the contest to become Marco Rubio’s running mate’?”
Indeed, despite his protestations, Rubio has to be on the short list of potential GOP running mates.
But the downside is that there is already a movement afoot (led by some on the fringe) to disqualify him from serving as president (which would presumably disqualify him from serving as vice president). That’s right — some are arguing that Rubio is not eligible because he is not a “natural born citizen.”
Here’s how the logic works (according to World Net Daily’s Joe Kovacs): “While the Constitution does not define ‘natural-born citizen,’ there is strong evidence that the Founding Fathers understood it to mean someone born of two American citizens.”
Kovacs (and he is not alone) goes on to reason that Rubio’s “eligibility is in doubt” because — though his parents were legal U.S. residents when he was born — they were not yet naturalized citizens.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
‘The Rule of Law and the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause’
Excerpt: Obama’s father, a British citizen, was never a U.S. citizen. Hence, Obama was not born in the country to citizen parents. Because Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen, Obama, even if born in Hawaii which he has yet to conclusively prove, was also born with allegiance to and citizenship in Great Britain. Consequently, Obama was not born with no foreign allegiance and with sole loyalty and attachment to the United States. He was not born with sole allegiance and unity of citizenship in the United States at birth, a natural condition that the Founders and Framers wanted in future presidents and commanders in chief. He was not born under the full and complete allegiance and jurisdiction of the United States. He is not and cannot be an Article II “natural born Citizen.” Under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, he is therefore not eligible to be President and Commander in Chief.
By saying, in 1790, that the children born to a U.S. father overseas are “natural born citizens” they are clarifying that they do not need “naturalization” into a state they were born into.
You were and remain wrong to say that one needed TWO citizen parents to be considered a citizen before the 14th Amendment and that those without two citizen parents needed to be naturalized.
They did not.
One parent (the father) was enough to be a citizen at birth and not need naturalization.
It is historic revisionism and absolutely incorrect to say that before the 14th they would not be citizens and would need naturalization if they only had one citizen parent.
Speaking of splitting hairs - your post was AFTER the election.
If you knew and didn’t say until AFTER the election - why were you holding out on us?
One cannot prove a negative or indicate a state of knowledge beyond what people wrote - I don’t have a mind reader and/or a time machine.
But what is clear from threads about eligibility from BEFORE the election - is that the “born in country of two citizen parents” standard was not well known or widely discussed.
Why not?
“And I have asked you and others repeatedly to find one book that contradicts us... just one!”
I’m pretty sure you’ve never repeatedly asked me, and I’m limited to what I can find online at the moment, and the null hypothesis rule should really put the burden on birthers themselves to show that their claimed books actually exist, but still...
Just one?
I’ll even throw in a children’s book at no extra cost:
And Amazon doesn’t allow linking, but p. 163 of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to U.S. Government” also says “The president must be a natural-born citizen, meaning he or she must be born in the United States or have parents who are American citizens.”
“I remember in the discussions at the time that it was perceived that approving McCain’s legitimacy was a sort of trade-off for not examining Obama’s”
Citation?
The first book you linked to was published in 1998, the second in 1999, and although I am glad that you are trying to find books appropriate to your abilities, the idiots guide was published in 2009. None of those books could have been used when I and many other of your fellow Freepers went to school.
Apperantly you can’t follow even the simplest of directions... find me a Civics textbook from the 50s, 60s, or 70s that contradicts my and many other’s recollections or SHUT UP!
You have called us liars and made fun of us so NO! THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON YOU! And YES, you and I have had this discussion previously with the same results; you insult people, call them liars and then can’t produce the goods to back youself up... you post such a huge volume of useless, insulting drivel that you are incapable of even finding your own posts.
“But what is clear from threads about eligibility from BEFORE the election - is that the ‘born in country of two citizen parents’ standard was not well known or widely discussed.”
That’s putting it mildly. The 14’th Amendment and the 1898 case U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark settled the matter, at least for those born in the U.S. In 1916 Breck Long argued that the citizenship of a candidate born before the 14’th Amendment “must be considered as under the laws existing prior to the time of the adoption of that Amendment”, and on that basis held that parentage mattered. [”Chicago Legal News” vol. 146]
After Long’s 1916 essay, the theory went silent. In our time, the legal literature considered the eligibility of the native-born to be clear and settled. For example:
“It is clear enough that native-born citizens are eligible and that naturalized citizens are not.” [Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 Md. L. Rev. 1, 19 (1968).]
“It is well settled that ‘native-born’ citizens, those born in the United States, qualify as natural born.” [Jill Pryor, ‘The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility’, 97 Yale Law Journal 881-889 (1988).]
“Natural born citizen. Persons who are born within the jurisdiction of a national government, i.e. in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens temporarily residing abroad.” — /Black’s Law Dictionary/, Sixth edition.
The Vatell theory reappeared in October or November of 2008 when amateur attorney Leo Donofrio brought the first of his losing cases, Donofrio v. Wells.
You’re back to your twisting strawman games.
Congress’ powers WRT naturalization have nothing to do with the constitutional requirements for the presidency.
Congress saying anything does not change those requirements.
The two citizen parent requirement is not in any way in question, no matter how you may squirm. None of your questionable sources, nor rationalizations has the slightest bearing on the subject.
We have always had quislings like you in this country, and always will, but facts do not change. The massive compendium of foundational support for the two parent requirement in the constitution includes every Supreme court decision that addressed citizenship in any form or venue, and a vast number of learned essays and letters from leaders of the time.
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>> “It is historic revisionism and absolutely incorrect to say that before the 14th they would not be citizens and would need naturalization if they only had one citizen parent.” <<
.
That is a complete strawman. I never made such a statement, but regardless, the person with only a father as a citizen would not be “natural born” and would not be elligible to the presidency.
Natural Born was a term that had and continues to have a special meaning, and does not include all persons born in country. Allegiance is what determines the issue, and split allegiance negates natural born status. Natural born has nothing to do with where you are born; its to whom you are born that counts.
You said....
“Prior to the 14th all persons not born of two citizens had to be “naturalized.”” editor-surveyor
That is incorrect. The child of a citizen father born overseas had no need of naturalization according to the 1790 Naturalization Law.
Here ya go: a civics textbook from the 1970s.
Thorough discussion of Presidential eligibility; no mention whatsoever that the President must be born to two citizen parents. The only mention of parental citizenship is in the context of a child “born abroad of American parents.”
So I’ve now produced FOUR books, including two from the 1990s and one from the 1970s. Have you managed to locate even one that *supports* your recollections?
The Naturalization Law of 1790 is a questionable source as to the requirements for the presidency; it is irrelevant thereto.
Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government
If one is born with foreign citizenship, and thus owed allegiance to a foreign country, one was considered a foreigner. Citizenship, in 1787, followed that of the father (for children) and the husband (for wives).
Their inclusion of the "natural born Citizen" clause had nothing to do with the (yet to be defined) national laws on naturalization.
Not having been born to two foreign national parents he's not.
He's clearly a 14th Amendment "citizen" of the U.S....
A "natural born Citizen" he could never be.
Yeah, of course, the WKA court is more in the "know" than two men who were actually there:
October 18, 1787 - James Madison wrote to George Washington, N. York:
"Since the Revolution every State has made great inroads & with great propriety in many instances on this monarchical code.[Edit: Englands "Common Law"] The "revisal of the laws" by a Committe of wch. Col. Mason [Edit: George Mason] was a member, though not an acting one, abounds with such innovations. The abolition of the right of primogeniture, which I am sure Col. Mason does not disapprove, falls under this head.. What could the Convention have done? If they had in general terms declared the Common law to be in force, they would have broken in upon the legal Code of every State in the most material points: they wd. have done more, they would have brought over from G.B. a thousand heterogeneous & anti-republican doctrines, and even the ecclesiastical Hierarchy itself, for that is a part of the Common law."
June 18, 1788 - George Mason, In Convention, Richmond (Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution), states:
"We have it in our power to secure our liberties and happiness on the most unshaken, firm, and permanent basis. We can establish what government we please. But by that paper we are consolidating the United States into one great government, and trusting to constructive security. You will find no such thing in the English government. The common law of England is not the common law of these states."
When the Decleration of Independence and the Constitution were writen, English subjects could not renounce their alligience to the one soverign, the crown:
"Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the king's dominions immediately upon their birth. For, immediately upon their birth, they are under the king's protection; at a time too, when (during their infancy) they are incapable of protecting themselves. Natural allegiance is therefore a debt of gratitude; which cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered, by any change of time, place, or circumstance, nor by any thing but the united concurrence of the legislature. An Englishman who removes to France, or to China, owes the same allegiance to the king of England there as at home, and twenty years hence as well as now. For it is a principle of universal law, that the natural-born subject of one prince cannot by any act of his own, no, not by swearing allegiance to another, put off or discharge his natural allegiance to the former: for this natural allegiance was intrinsic, and primitive, and antecedent to the other; and cannot be devested without the concurrent act of that prince to whom it was first due. Indeed the natural-born subject of one prince, to whom he owes allegiance, may be entangled by subjecting himself absolutely to another; but it is his own act that brings him into these straits and difficulties, of owing service to two masters; and it is unreasonable that, by such voluntary act of his own, he should be able at pleasure to unloose those bands, by which he is connected to his natural prince."William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:354, 357--58, 361--62
How, then, did they declare their Independence from the King if they were not permitted to do so under English Common law?
They used the principles found in natural law. Vattel states, in the Law of Nations (which is based on natural law), that citizens may renounce (or quit) their citizenship and allegiance to a country:
"Chapter XIX: Of Our Native Country And Several Things That Relate To ItThe founders could never have written our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, had they stuck with or adhered to, English Common law.
§ 220. Whether a person may quit his country.... 1. The children are bound by natural ties to the society in which they were born; they are under an obligation to show themselves grateful for the protection it has afforded to their fathers … They ought, therefore, to love it, as we have already shown, to express a just gratitude to it, and requite its services as far as possible, by serving it in turn … But every man is born free; and the son of a citizen … may examine whether it be convenient for him to join the society for which he was destined by his birth. If he does not find it advantageous to remain in it, he is at liberty to quit it ..."
July 4, 1776 was the beginning of their breaking away from the Monarchical code.
“Prior to the 14th all persons not born of two citizens had to be “naturalized.”” editor-surveyor
Wrong. Congress has the Constitutional power to make laws for Naturalization and the Naturalization Law of 1790 said that a child BORN OVERSEAS even, to a U.S. citizen father - had NO NEED to be naturalized.
“Citizen Rubio may not be an NBC’ but thar does NOT nean he is anything but a Good American!” I wish he was one of my Senators!
I guess you don’t care much about actually following the Constitution.
The Constitution only mentions two subdivisions of U.S. citizens - those that are natural born and those that must be naturalized.
How is that for following the Constitution?
Your opinion.
And, if your opinion had any legal validity, can you explain why absolutely nobody raised this concern about Barack Obama? Even though virtually every lawyer, politician, legal scholar and well-informed person was aware that his daddy was not an American citizen.
For almost two years, Obama was running for President -- and it occurred to nobody to question his eligibility?
The birther argument certainly carried weight as it related to the place of his birth and, thus, the birth certificate. But this whole argument about what "natural-born" really means is a self-serving dance on the head of a pin. For all intents and purposes, the legal issue (if there ever was one) has been resolved by Obama's election and inauguration.
If he wasn't eligible, what the hell is he doing in the Oval Office? If any crank jurist was going to come down in favor of your opinion regarding "natural-born", there is no frickin' way he'd do it now.
I encourage you to go back to the birth certificate argument, if you want to make any legitimate progress.
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